Nonsense That I Can’t Speak

*silence*

THE LINES ARE BLURRY

I have stayed too long in the shower. I wake up every morning to a fogged-up mirror, I can’t see through. I get a glimpse of her drained and confused eyes, which I can identify as belonging to mine. Every year, I am further and further away from who I’ve established myself to be. Thinking that I know who I am and the claims of me being a strong-minded individual have been the biggest lies I’ve ever let myself believe. Every passing day I realize that I am weak. With that comes the realization that I am easily erased charcoal, people touch me and in one swift motion, I fade. I can walk an entire city and I continue to fail in my attempt to leave a mark, I deceive myself by believing in my relevance. Everything about me is easily washed away by the bright success of others and the ever-present superiority they hold. It’s as if a shadow has been cast upon me and it is darkness that follows, a gloomy sky and light rain playing in the background mocking the tears I’ve shed. The worst is yet to come, I can feel it creeping into my skin, itching and building up. I cannot be lost again. Have I ever really been found?

GOLD

People like him are godsent, they grow up with loving families that hold them until their dreams take over. He was accepted, embraced, and encouraged by them all. His only mission in life has ever been to be happy. I would be lying if I said I don’t envy that, I see him flying around gifting smiles with his every move looking for nothing but to connect with them all. I can't help but wonder: How many hearts were devoted to giving him this insufferable love? To love and to be loved is a luxury some of us can’t afford, that holy and sacred promise of blood sometimes falls short. Many days I ask myself: Is it worse to not be loved by your own or to have known their love and been maliciously stripped away from it? He would have the perfect answer for that, I don't want to know though. For now, I just want to enjoy his laugh, bright eyes, selfishly hear his voice, and stare at that golden smile– a smile we would all die and go to hell for.

What’s a performance and what isn’t? 

INTO MY ARMS

Sometimes I wonder what kind of human I am, I sure don't feel like the rest of you. Don't we all? Surrounded by people, everyone feels out of reach as if some magnetic force is pushing me away from the crowd and into a black hole where my voice is muted by chants of “Have I met you?” You haven't, you won't. I go through life, I sit on this bench. Transparent. If only there was that one soul who could translate what I mean to the rest of you, maybe then you could all understand my why. Somedays I wonder if I think the same way you do or if something went wrong during my manufacturing. I am sleepwalking, who will awaken me? Autonomy feels so out of reach. I stand moving like a marionette to your song. I listen to your commands. I am a malleable being, as much as I would like to sit here and tell you that I play by my own rules, that I don't follow the crowd. Today I can admit I in fact abide by them, I encourage them. Without you, I am only a hollow body waiting for guidance, searching for purpose. On days like this, where I wake up to silence, where I walk through a faceless crowd, where their voices are the soundtrack of my life– it is on these days where that numbness and ache in my chest feels asphyxiating. Feeling lost after being found is a new kind of pain nobody ever prepared me for. To return to me, to open my arms and wrap myself around my other half, to meet once again. I wish for nothing more than to be pushed down the hill, for something anything really to send me spinning down into my own arms. 

Loving you is to not love you because when I am not loving you I am acting out of love. 

ROMA

I’ve always been a quiet person, you see me, I'm always there but I don’t speak. It is in my nature to keep to myself, to find what I enjoy and not share. It seems like coming into this world I made it a point to be self-sufficient and that had never failed me until Roma.

Before:

Always in the back of the room, I stood, I would wait and observe. I like spectating and trust me that’s how I have learned everything. It's a powerful thing, listening. You understand people and quickly realize that none of them are listening to each other. To be fair, I don't think they are even listening to themselves. I have always walked alone, I take pride in understanding myself knowing where I'm headed and why I am heading in that direction. For years, I followed my own northern star, the voice telling me what to do. My horoscope calls me the Sage, it likes to flatter me by saying I'm all wisdom and wit. Well, if you believe in horoscopes you might want to rethink that decision right now. The destination that northern star and said “wit” led me to was not wise nor reasonable, it was absolutely idiotic and I have forever lined myself up for failure. 

During:

He was everything I have ever hated on a person. He was dependent, childlike, insecure, unambitious, and frankly boring. Somehow none of that mattered because the second I stepped foot on that plane to Roma I was doomed. I knew that I didn’t want to be with him but I knew that I wanted him more and that easily misleading in between is what got me into this mess. I swear I’d never seen him, not metaphorically or anything but I had never seen him. It took a twelve-hour flight for me to see him truly and piece together who he was. He’d always been somebody else’s I’d never thought of him as his own. It must've been something in the air, the literal lack of ground or some otherworldly power that decided what this stupid muscle in my chest wanted. He is insufferable, sometimes I think I truly despise him. Ever since that moment, my life has only ever felt like a terrible anxiety-inducing romantic tragedy. Roma was secrecy, intrigue, passion, danger, and–I never understand if this four-letter word is used correctly here but– love. 

After:

Have you ever burned inside out, ached for one and one person only to stay near you forever? I don't like thinking about love because it is terrifying to think one day someone will come into your life and invalidate whatever you thought love was. But he somehow made sense, in the midst of this stupid opposition I have always been at his disposition. Up until meeting him did I believe that love could not be blind. That there is rationality to that feeling, that we can pick and choose right from wrong. All of that was easily forgotten by my brain, the sound of my sage muffled by his voice. I have never doubted him once because I have bonded myself for life. If today we do not stand together, something in the air of Roma has forever stitched me to him. Currently, in the dark and possibly the furthest we’ve ever been from each other I write this. Somehow I still feel connected, and in touch with him regardless of my empty text message box. Not lovers, occasionally friends, that northern star has forever led towards balance. The one where we are acquaintances with a past. Where I can stand in the back of the room and he can have the spotlight, a place I have come to terms with. A place where everything makes sense because we had each other and we had Roma. 

IT’S YOUR RIGHT NOT YOUR WRONG

I hope you know that what they taught you in that school was really wrong. That choosing as a woman and protecting yourself from the evils of a patriarchal world is your right and not your wrong. I hope you know you are not a sinner. I hope your family can show you the love everyone deserves, the love you desperately need. I hope you are okay. I ache knowing that I can’t reach you, that you are long gone and I truly hope you make it through. I can only pray that you know that I’m here and that some forsaken force of thought sparks and lets you know that I am thinking about you. That I am here and you are not alone. As much as I shouldn’t care, as sovereign as you are, I am here stuck in some limbo trying to get to you. Letting you all know that you are not doing anything wrong.

My roots have grown out, I stick out from under you and our bodies are no longer united by your deceiving nectar. The one I willingly devoured.

TIME

I am so scared. I am scared that I’m grieving you when you are right here. The fact that you are not six feet under and I already miss you twists my heart. I fucking miss you all the time. I miss being your little girl and your password. I miss meaning something to you. I sometimes feel like you are gone, I don’t want to go through life as if you didn’t exist. I don’t want to find someone until I have you by my side and what if that is never? What if when you are gone I’ll feel just like I am feeling right now? That is not right. It has to hurt more, I can’t get used to life without you when you are here. I can’t help but feel like I did something wrong, what is it that took you away from me? Please tell me so I can fix it before it’s too late.

Is it too late?

Everybody wants to be somebody to someone, but I’ve found comfort in not being anyone to you. I appreciate your apathy and expect nothing less than your indifference.

DOUBT-SELF-DOUBT

Maybe I’m not a good writer. That might be true, but I am a writer and that’s all I know. Because when it all goes wrong I’m here and when everything is right I find myself in front of my computer smacking the keys. Maybe I am not a good writer but I am one. 

I find comfort in my sadness. Perhaps because it’s the only thing that has ever held me and wrapped itself around me, “you have never failed me.” It has never left and I’d rather remain devoted to this sadness than be a happy fool waiting for disappointment. My heart has been shattered and I live in peace knowing the realist in me persists.

I am tired of being the writer writing about tragedy. Can’t I for once experience and write a story with those sappy totally annoying happy endings? I am stuck writing this inevitable stream of pity party essays. Bear with me.

Maybe my therapist was wrong when she said I was okay and could go home. How could I explain this double life I carry on that has merged into one? My fiction has deceived me. I am my own victim.